Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 at 4:25 pm  |  67 responses

Links: Playoffs Diary Day 11

Plus Bob Costas, Mike D’Antoni and Avery Johnson. And a crossword puzzle…

by Lang Whitaker

So Mike D’Antoni and Avery Johnson are both reportedly dunzo after first-round Playoff knockouts.

The Avery Johnson release doesn’t surprise me so much. Mark Cuban is famously a man with a quick trigger, and after the Mavs went ahead during the 2005 NBA Finals and choked, it’s been all downhill ever since. While everything seemed well, Dallasbasketball.com has numerous compelling examples of some of the behind the scenes shenanigans from Dallas, with the last straw appearing to be a Joint Howard birthday party that led to Avery canceling practice and the Mavs canceling their season.

I’m no huckleberry, but even from watching the Mavs on TV, it was obvious that Avery was something of a micromanager who called almost every play from the sideline. That’s a great approach for a high school team, but not so much for a bunch of grown millionaires. The Mavs players, apparently, tired of it, as did Mark Cuban. (And is anyone surprised Jason Kidd allegedly had beef with his head coach? Has he ever gotten along with a coach? Meanwhile, Stephon Marbury is the malcontent.)

And in Phoenix, Mike D’Antoni appears to have pulled the plug on things, leaking the news to his main man Jack McCallum that he was ready to get out of town. Meanwhile, Steve Kerr says D’Antoni is still the coach and the SI story is wrong. Odd that there would be a disconnect, although perhaps this explains why D’Antoni would want to leave. Also, I love the part about a shouting match between Kerr and D’Antoni that ends with D’Antoni yelling, “Don’t tell me how to coach offense!” Kerr should have asked D’Antoni if he could look at all his championship rings.

So there’s two big-time teams out West who need a coach, and there’s two big-time coaches who need a job. D’Antoni getting hired in Dallas would be one way or Mark Cuban getting back at Steve Nash for leaving town, but I don’t think Dallas has a roster of players conducive to the way D’Antoni likes to play. What teams could use a coach? Well, there’s New York, Chicago, and I’m sure people will try to re-connect D’Antoni and Bryan Colangelo in Toronto.

And then there’s the Atlanta Hawks, who will see Mike Woodson’s contract come to an end on June 30. Can you imagine D’Antoni salivating over the Hawks roster of young, fast, fleet players? Wow. Just saying…

• While watching the games last night, I flipped over to HBO. Thank goodness for Bob Costas, because on his show “Costas Now” he provided what the world has been crying out for: an investigation of the relationship between sports and the media. I happened to tune in during a segment on blogs and sports, and I saw Deadspin’s Will Leitch on-screen with the unhinged writer Buzz Bissinger and some guy from the Cleveland Browns who was apparently mute. Bissinger started ranting and raving and became unhinged, and it was so uncomfortable that I had to change the channel. (Will wrote all about it this morning. Video of it is here.)

I particularly liked Bissinger’s point that W.C. Heinz is “one the greatest writers living, until he recently died.” Salient, nuanced, insightful. That’s why we should turn to people like Bissinger for our information instead of blogs. Just watch the clip and look at all the people involved. Who would you prefer to spend your free time reading? Me too.

When he finally breaks his silence, Braylon Edwards (who carried my fantasy team this season, btw) argues that athletes today behave exactly like athletes did in the ’60s, but the coverage is totally different and basically, they can’t get their party on. Good point, except for one thing: Athletes today are paid about million times more than athletes were paid in the ’60s, and as a result, fans (rightly or wrongly) hold athletes to a higher standard. I’ve written this here about a million times, but if you want to pay me $10 million a year for six or seven years, I will gladly take the cash and sit at home and do nothing in my free time. When my contract ends and nobody cares about me, I might go buck wild, but if you’re going to take the big cash, you have to accept the expectations that come along with the dough.

The segment turned into a platform for the bashing of blogs and ranting about the debasing of sports coverage. And it was hosted by a man who appeared in the film BASEketball.

Later, I turned back over to HBO and the show was still on, as Bob Costas spoke to Jason Whitlock, Mike Wilbon and Cris Carter about race and sports. (Costas didn’t specify, but judging by the panel, he wasn’t interested in any races other than African-Americans.) When I flipped over, Whitlock was saying something about getting run off ESPN for talking about Barry Bonds, but Costas cut him off and said that while this was a very important discussion, they were out of time. And then, swear to God, a show called “Cathouse” about a brothel in Nevada came on.

The media loves to talk about the media, so the Costas show will certainly get a lot of attention and interest. But is it going to affect any change? Other than me changing the channel, I doubt it.

• I changed the channel to start playing Grand Theft Auto 4, and I didn’t get too far into it, so before I totally weigh in let me say that the game has already begun to affect my life in a negative way. Also, it is the greatest video game of all time.

• Last thing before I start my ritualistic preparations for tonight’s Hawks/Celts Game 5: In the last issue of SLAM we published a crossword puzzle. We did it because we thought it would be fun, until I realized it was no fun at all making all those words connect. Still, we did it. I hadn’t looked at it since we published it, and then today I tried to fill it out and, as you’ll see from my completed puzzle below, it wasn’t easy. Anyway, here’s your answers…

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  • j Posted: Apr.30 at 4:30 pm
    Is that Dallas site from 1996? Jesus….and didn’t Dallas choke the 2006 Finals away??
    So they’re last 3 playoff runs have gone…
    2006 – Lost in Finals
    2007 – Lost to 8th seed in first round
    2008 – Lost in first round after trading for Kidd.

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 4:31 pm
    Hallaluah! (sp?) The crossword is dope. Good stuff, Lang.

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 4:32 pm
    I’m also excited to not have to read any more comments asking for the crossword answers.

  • Chou Posted: Apr.30 at 4:33 pm
    D’Antoni getting hired in Dallas would be one way or Mark Cuban getting back at Steve Nash for leaving town, Wait, i thought it was the other way around?

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 4:34 pm
    And it was hosted by a man who appeared in the film BASEketball. My favorite thing Lang has written this year.

  • Maurice Garland Posted: Apr.30 at 4:39 pm
    yeah..i was wondering about D’Antoni coming to Atlanta myself…but something tells me the Atlanta Spirit just let Woody buy himself an extra year. It been defense thats been winning these games as of late and D’Antoni doesnt know what that word means in English yet.

  • LordGef Posted: Apr.30 at 4:40 pm
    I remember being annoyed by Bob Costas during the ’98 finals. I was nine years old.

  • H to the izzo Posted: Apr.30 at 4:43 pm
    I didn’t get the issue yet so that completely ruined the fun of the crossword I didn’t know about.

  • Myung Posted: Apr.30 at 5:02 pm
    Defense has been winning these games for the Hawks? I thought it was their Suns like offense? I admit they’ve made some crucial stops, but I actually think it’s their offense that’s been key…

  • Myung Posted: Apr.30 at 5:05 pm
    I know the ride isn’t over… but I admit I’m a little wary as a Hawks fan. You’ve got two big decisions up top (Knight and Woodson), since their contracts are up. You’ve got two big restricted free agents (Josh and Josh). Do you keep Bibby for next year (I think they will)? And lastly, Joe is going to be on the Olympic team, and I’m all for representing your country, but at what cost to your NBA team the following season… let’s just hope this run lasts long enough to prolong the stressful summer we’ll endure as Hawks fans.

  • Russ Bengtson Posted: Apr.30 at 5:05 pm
    Buzz Bissinger makes me want to stop reading newspapers entirely. (And why is it that “professional” journalism is filled with belligerent grown men who call themselves “Buzz” and “Skip”? Take a buyout and go away.)

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 5:08 pm
    I liked what my man Jon Weisman from my beloved DodgerThoughts blog had to say >>>The fact is, even as the consumption of information migrates online, even as the economics of the business are forever altered, a quorum of readers and writers are still interested in truth. Journalism is not dying. It may be evolving, but it’s not dying. It’s living and breathing – breathing fire at times, just like it always has. (Or was Charles Foster Kane modeled on a blogger?) What decay there is isn’t the bloggers’ fault, it’s the business model’s, as well as that of some of the leadership. Without a doubt, there’s vitriol out there on the Internet. But that’s not the medium; that’s some of the messengers (especially if you’re going to count, as Bissinger did, the most acid commenters as bloggers). You can find hate speech and irresponsibility around every corner of the universe, and it’s telling that by far the most hate-filled person in the debate tonight was the man who has spent 40 years “perfecting his craft.” What an advertisement for convention he was. Cloaking his venom in the concept of protecting integrity, when he brought so little integrity to the debate himself, was embarrassing if you weren’t too snowed to realize it. How do you spend decades reading and writing and not grasp that every medium, from theater to film, from television to print, from cave drawings to the Internet, has its strong and weak? You do that when you are the very thing you so deride in others: biased, and more in love with the sound of your own voice than the possibility of hearing truth in others.<<<

  • Myles Brown Posted: Apr.30 at 5:11 pm
    Im gonna watch it all tonight before I officially hate on it, but heres a thought, maybe instead of sh*tting on bloggers for their lack of credentials and/or access we should consider the inverse. That bloggers actually arent beholden to the subjects they cover so its possible to get an unbiased opinion from them since they have no fear of having their access cut off. And until theres a town hall meeting on Skip Bayless, Stephen A Smith, etc. then I cant take this as anything but fearful hate mongering.

  • Ryan Jones Posted: Apr.30 at 5:11 pm
    I’ll second Ben — Lang, your take on the Costas sh*t was 128 percent on-point. As I told Mutoni a little while ago, it actually makes me wish Friday Night Lights wasn’t such a good book. And then midget Bob starts reading examples of COMMENTS on a Deadspin blog to illustrate the problems with the format. Think Bob’s ever read a letter published in any daily newspaper in America? UNREAL.

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 5:12 pm
    Sorry izzo! But there had been a good 15-20 comments of people angrily asking for answers so we figured it was time to provide them.

  • Ryan Jones Posted: Apr.30 at 5:13 pm
    Unrelated: Nice work, Chelsea.

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 5:14 pm
    Ryan, I said the same thing to Susan: it’s too bad he wrote one of my favorite books ever. But really it’s not too bad. The irony is that Buzz could have his own blog with intelligent sports commentary and it would probably be a total success.

  • what Posted: Apr.30 at 5:15 pm
    BASEketball is a fine achievement of filmmaking, my good sir.

  • Ryan Jones Posted: Apr.30 at 5:15 pm
    Myles, it was sort of like watching Christopher Hitchens talk about Christianity. Only the smell of booze was actually stronger.
    Also, an irony: In an assault on online media, Costas’ stupid show will get more online views than for anything its ever done. When it comes to self-defeating marketing, Costas is the DeShawn Stevenson of cable TV!

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 5:15 pm
    Ryan, there are no good guys when Chelsea and Liverpool are playing for the right to play Man U. Gross.

  • dre baldwin Posted: Apr.30 at 5:17 pm
    that crossword puzzle was horribly done… joeyc? lakerla? how would anyone ever guess that? be serious.

  • Ryan Jones Posted: Apr.30 at 5:18 pm
    Ben, think of it this way: If McCain wins in November, I won’t be happy, but I WILL be happy Bush is gone.

  • Jack Posted: Apr.30 at 5:20 pm
    That Semi Final was amazing. Man United and Chelsea, all English final. Plus after the way the league is finishing, that final is gonna be great. But my Newcastle can ruin Chelsea’s league hopes on Monday. ;)

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 5:21 pm
    I got you, Ryan. I was poking fun at your Red obsession.

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 5:22 pm
    Dre, Lang does not do Crossword puzzles for a living. For a first (only?)-time effort I thought it was solid.

  • Khalid Salaam Posted: Apr.30 at 5:23 pm
    bloggers are taking our jobs……

  • Russ Bengtson Posted: Apr.30 at 5:23 pm
    GET OFF OF MY LAWN!!!!

  • Bubba Chuck Posted: Apr.30 at 5:29 pm
    Xword: Y is Michael Jackson AI’s favorite singer?

  • Bubba Chuck Posted: Apr.30 at 5:32 pm
    Xword: Adrian Dantley!

  • vjm Posted: Apr.30 at 5:34 pm
    this has more to do with a later segment on costas’s show, but one question i’ve always had about sportswriters is why they feel their subjects OWE them access. selena roberts, who otherwise seems pretty level-headed, sat there bitching about how lebron wouldn’t give her ten minutes of one-on-on-one time for her story. so what? does she think every journo who asks jay-z for an interview gets it? hell no. but writers who cover music, or entertainment, or politics, or business, find a way to get stories regardless. yet sportswriters are always the ones complaining the loudest about not getting “ten minutes after the game” from players. is it ultimately in lebron’s interest to give her some access, to promote himself more and make himself more famous/rich? yeah, from a certain point of view. but last time i checked he’s pretty rich and famous already, and maybe he doesn’t feel the need to talk to every reporter out there. that should be his prerogative. does the governor, or the president, after a long day of signing bills stand outside the capitol and answer questions from each and every last reporter? hell no. (should they? maybe….) does the president of walmart answer questions from business reporters after every single staff meeting? hell no. but reporters in those fields (by and large) don’t expect that kind of insane one-on-one access. why do sportswriters? and why do they take it so personally when they don’t get it?

  • Lang Whitaker Posted: Apr.30 at 5:37 pm
    Bubba: Because AI says he is.
    http://slamonline.com/online/2008/02/links-all-star-saturday/

  • Lang Whitaker Posted: Apr.30 at 5:38 pm
    VJM: I didn’t even want to go into that one.

  • vjm Posted: Apr.30 at 5:40 pm
    lang:

  • Russ Bengtson Posted: Apr.30 at 5:43 pm
    If Buzz’s sense of self-worth were any more overinflated he could earn extra money by supplying exterior shots of arenas and stadiums.

  • vjm Posted: Apr.30 at 5:43 pm
    damnit.
    lang: its funny that i said that in this forum, because you seem to take it more with a grain of salt than most sports writers — at least you are upfront a lot of the time about the guys you talk to, and are close with, than other reporters. i like hearing how drew gooden texted you or hit up your sidekick last night, and that’s how you can tell us stuff. but yeah, that’s a lot to lay on ya.

  • Bubba Chuck Posted: Apr.30 at 5:43 pm
    O my bad

  • Russ Bengtson Posted: Apr.30 at 5:47 pm
    And Sean Salisbury IS a f*ckface, by the way. It’s not like he was an intelligent analyst. He was just another loudmouth blowhard who brought nothing to the table. Costas should have found a comment section where people said what they really thought about HIM.

  • thasam Posted: Apr.30 at 6:17 pm
    Most of these sportswriters are runnings scared because their longstanding sense of entitlement and elitist way of like is being threatened by sites like deadspin, magazines like Slam, and other alternative outlets. Like a lot of us, I was drawn to Slam because I was tired of having my basketball information dictated to me by middle-aged white men who openly despise the NBA. And we are all tired of having our sports knowledge and worldview dictated to us by extremely narrow-minded and ignorant individuals like Jay Mariotti, Skip Bayless, Buzz, and others who have the gall to think that they are so much smarter than me because they are presumably around these athletes 24/7 (although they are far more detatched from thew games they cover than they will ever admit). It’s the height of hypocricy when Buzz rips Deadspin for putting out the photo of Matt Leinart because guys like Buzz would be ripping Leinart a new asshole for that photo when we all know that most of us would be enjoying that life the way he is. It reminds me of the story on how Scoop Jackson was told that he would never write for sports illustrated because he was supposedly too player friendly, when all Scoop said was that while he will criticize poeple when it is warranted, he’s not about to demonize them because he understands where they come from. As for the supposed death of newspapers, it’s a more of a self-inflicted death than anything else – no major American newspaper bothered to cover important and consequnetial events such as that sham that was the last two presidential elections and the Downing Street memo, and as we’re seeing form the Obama-Reverend Wright-”Bitter” fallout, they are more interested in creating false and distracting controversies that covering real issues.

  • Tariq Posted: Apr.30 at 7:43 pm
    I can reduce this whole media discussion into a nice little bite-sized kernel of truthiness: ALL media is laughably devoid of any merit and/or credibility, with the exception of: - SLAM
    - World Soccer
    - Le Monde Diplomatique (English edition for us non-Francophones)
    - MAD
    - The Wall Street Journal
    - The Believer
    - Maxim And I ain’t even playing. Play wit that.

  • Tariq Posted: Apr.30 at 7:44 pm
    Ok, so I may have jumped the gun with the Maxim thing…but everthing else is air-tight.

  • Tariq Posted: Apr.30 at 7:46 pm
    Here’s a test for you SLAM writers…I understand you all wear jeans and such when you go to cover games? Look around you, and ANY sportswriter/beat writer wearing a suit is 97% likely to be a douchebag. Man, my methods are scientific.

  • RV Posted: Apr.30 at 7:47 pm
    in other, somewhat related basketball news, the Utah-houston series is still going on after a big win by Houston last night. A word or two might be nice. Is there at least a game recap or something coming up?

  • RV Posted: Apr.30 at 7:49 pm
    Hopefully y’all can contain yourselves from replying “its over”, “houston sucks”, or “who cares” or any other two-word replies

  • Tariq Posted: Apr.30 at 7:54 pm
    Damn you, RV…you made me waste 3 minutes trying to think of a snarky two-word reply. Unfortunately, they were all profanity-laden. Blame Deadwood. Or Bloggers (except Ben collins).

  • Tariq Posted: Apr.30 at 7:58 pm
    And I don’t know what exactly a “blogger” is…does someone who has credentials AND a blog count as a blogger? Anyway, I’d rather get my analysis from someone like Joey at Straight Bangin’ or someone like that than 76.3% of the a$$faces at ESPN. Does J.A. Adande count as a “legitmate” sportswriter? I’d hesitate to call him “literate”.

  • B. Long Posted: Apr.30 at 8:03 pm
    @Russ: Did you ever see Salisbury get really fu(king pissed and scream at nerdy ass John Clayton? HAVE U EVER PLAYED A DOWN OF FOOTBALL IN UR LIFE? THEN U DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HELL UR TALKIN BOUT!!! classy.

  • Tariq Posted: Apr.30 at 8:20 pm
    There’s also the Gene Wodofsexyback/ Jemele Hill school of sportswriting, which is this: it’s OK to write something, even if you yourself don’t believe it, if it gives you the opportunity to write a column. Example:
    In early April, Jemele Hill writes an article about how absurd it would be if Kobe wins the MVP, likening it to Al Pacino finally winning the Oscar after numerous snubs for Scent of a Woman. Then, about two weeks later, the ESPN writers vote for the end-of-season awards, and Jemele Hill has voted for…Kobe Bryant!!! Now I’m fine with someone changing their MVP pick, especially this year, but to go from writing an article mourning the credibility of the MVP award if it goes to Kobe to voting for Kobe in such a short span tells me that the initial article was just a sensationalist piece of toilet paper which was probably written to meet a deadline. You know what? Bloggers don’t have deadlines. Just ask Russ.

  • Tariq Posted: Apr.30 at 8:22 pm
    I’m going to bed now.

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 9:13 pm
    Thanks for playing, Tariq. You get MVP of this post. Russ is the coach of the year. Thasam is most improved.

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 9:16 pm
    Lang is too caught up (understandably so, though let’s just say we have different rooting interests, for very different reasons, in this Hawks-Celtics series) to even type up his jokes, but he did have this to add to Russ @ 5:05: “you forgot ‘Woody’.”

  • Dacre Posted: Apr.30 at 9:53 pm
    Hi…have I come along too late for an award??…

  • Dacre Posted: Apr.30 at 9:54 pm
    I”l get you 20 – 10 and 4 but I’ll probably bomb out in the 1st round…
    ^_^

  • Ben Osborne Posted: Apr.30 at 10:57 pm
    Dacre, write something funny or witty and maybe you can win something too.

  • RV Posted: Apr.30 at 11:22 pm
    dacre, u can be ROY, since you don’t show up everyday (no offense)

  • Co Co Posted: May.1 at 12:19 am
    Damn I hate I missed this. Ben you were so on point.
    And, I don’t blame athletes for being sheltered. I mean look at the little Hollywood whores. They do all the interviews and magazine spreads and let every form of the media into their everyday lives then the next thing you know people are going through their trash and there are cameramen posted up outside of their houses every minute of every day. If you let the media in too much, they feel like they have every right to know everything about you and I personally don’t feel like we have the right to know everything about these athletes.

  • Nashty Posted: May.1 at 12:26 am
    Lang, your senseless defense on Marbury really piss people off! Marbury is a malcontent and Kidd is a HOF PG with more than 100 triple doulbe. Deal with it!

  • Ken H. Posted: May.1 at 2:30 am
    why the hell does jack mccallum put french phrases in his column at random intervals. i understand if they were common french pronouns like rendez-vous or something, but its like hes just throwing out french words to sound more like an intellectual jackass.

  • Tariq Posted: May.1 at 6:10 am
    Ben: Thanks. I’m sure Jemele Hill will now write a non-sensical article about me.

  • Tariq Posted: May.1 at 6:19 am
    Co Co: I don’t think you CAN know ANYTHING about these athletes. We see little glimpses of their personas and then our imaginations fill in the rest. If I’m wrong, I’d like someone to please explain to me who the f*ck Kobe, son of Jellybean, Bryant’s true self is. Of course, I’m sure someone will say something like “f*ckface” or “faker”, but I mean mean recuctive blurbs. And the same goes for all these athletes. I wonder how accurately our own true selves would be portrayed through the prism of this magnigfied, ridiculous media scrutiny.

  • riggs Posted: May.1 at 8:43 am
    bob costas was in BASEketball.

  • Ben Osborne Posted: May.1 at 9:14 am
    Lang covered that, Riggs.

  • Ryan Jones Posted: May.1 at 9:15 am
    vjm, sportswriters are like people: Many of them are idiots. Only probably a little moreso.

  • Allenp Posted: May.1 at 11:06 am
    Deadspin is often crap. Newspaper articles about sports are often crap. They are crappy together.

  • kevbo Posted: May.1 at 11:57 am
    lang, it’s too late but….did you know that you can just google something like “create crossword”, and sites have engines where you plug in clues and answers, hit “enter”…and its finished?

  • Lang Whitaker Posted: May.1 at 12:46 pm
    Yes, and did you know they usually are terrible?

  • Tommy Patron Posted: May.1 at 1:33 pm
    Buzz Bissinger is mad at Deadspin because people don’t buy the newspaper he writes for? I’d hate to be his 16 year old son, with Buzz’s penchant for misplacing anger.

  • eric Posted: May.14 at 9:01 pm
    please keep doing this crossword, i love it

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